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Senate candidates showing more caution with campaign rhetoric

ATLANTA | Republicans picked the two candidates with the closest business ties Tuesday to send to a July 22 runoff for the U.S. Senate nomination while Democrats overwhelmingly chose frontrunner Michelle Nunn.

David Perdue, the former CEO of Dollar General and Reebok, and Jack Kingston, a Savannah congressman endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, came in first and second.

The men ran as conservatives, but they were not the darlings of Georgia’s various tea party groups. Former Secretary of State Karen Handel and Athens Congressman Paul Broun staked the most claim to the tea-party mantel while Marietta Congressman Phil Gingrey banked on his own conservative credentials.

When the votes were counted, Perdue led with 31 percent, followed by Kingston’s 26 percent. Handel, who had swapped the second-place position in surveys the last weeks of the primary, wound up in third with 22 percent. Broun and Gingrey each pulled 10, and newcomers Art Gardner and Derrick Grayson took 1 percent apiece.

Perdue and Kingston had the most support from establishment Republicans who consider them solid, conservative potential senators and unlikely to commit a serious gaffe that could jeopardize the party’s hold on the seat and chance to take control of the Senate.

Still, Perdue has had verbal stumbles. He joked about it with supporters Tuesday night.

“If you hear me talk tonight and a year ago, you’ll see a little bit of difference,” he said.

Kingston has spent two decades in Congress, giving him a record of standing up to the Obama administration, which is unpopular in Georgia. He interrupted last-minute campaigning Tuesday to fly to Washington and vote on a bill key to federal approval to deepen the Savannah River, a project that could stimulate trade-related jobs for the state.

Perdue attacked Kingston in the primary as a career politician and promised Tuesday night to renew that refrain.

“We’re going to have a career politician on one side and an outsider on the other, so our message is not going to change,” Perdue said.

Kingston, on the other hand, tags Perdue as a Johnny-come-lately with no record of supporting Republicans and someone who had never voted in a GOP primary before Tuesday.

“I think that is extremely relevant to people who are looking for a conservative candidate and somebody who’s been in the fight,” Kingston said during a televised debate. “I’ve been in the fight.”

Both men benefitted from television ads sponsored by well-heeled political action committees. Most observers expect those PACs to continue in the runoff and others to join the fray.

Just an hour after Handel conceded Kingston the runoff spot, his campaign issued a press statement attacking Perdue as out of touch and favoring a sales tax on online purchases.

In the meantime, Nunn is holding on to most of the $6.6 million she has already raised and is trying to keep her own feet out of her mouth.

She told supporters during her own celebration Tuesday, “We want to restore economic growth, and we want to restore livable wages.”

But a day before, she got into trouble when she dodged a reporter’s question in an NBC News interview about whether she would have voted for the Affordable Care Act if she had been in the Senate at the time. All of the Democratic senators voted for it.

Nunn said, “It’s impossible to look back retrospectively and say, `What would you have done if you were there?’”

Liberals were as quick as conservatives to jump on the response as an obvious attempt to have it both ways ‑ energize the Democratic base that supports Obamacare while not alienating the majority of Georgians who oppose it.

Handel has not said who she will throw her support to in the runoff, but she did remind her own followers to continue working to ensure the GOP denies Nunn the seat.

The prime issue when Republicans cast ballots in July will be which candidate is best able to defeat Nunn.

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